TUCSON, AZ., January 25. THESE 'Cats aren't mild, they're wild. <\/p>\n
Coach Frank Busch's Arizona Wildcat women's swimmers made it a sweep of their California-based Pac-10 foes here this afternoon at the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center with a 197-136 win over Cal's Golden Bears. <\/p>\n
Yesterday, Arizona knocked off Stanford and speculation was rife that the 'Cats' had "rested" for Stanford and would go in the tank against Cal.<\/p>\n
Not a chance. <\/p>\n
Spurred on by three victories from sophomore Emily Mason, and two individual titles from Jessica Hayes, Arizona defeated the ninth-ranked Golden Bears while claiming nine victories out of a possible 13 events — including crucial relay events and both rounds of diving competition. <\/p>\n
The win gave the 'Cats' their fourth-straight dual-meet victory this season and put them in a good position to make it six-for-six against Texas and SMU on the road next weekend. <\/p>\n
For the rising Wildcat women, Mason led the way. She won the 500-1000 frees and the 200 individual medley (4:54.40, 10:13.06, 2:03.65 respectively). <\/p>\n
Over the weekend, Mason took five individual titles, a key in the Cats' sweep of its two higher-ranked squads. (Her only loss was to Stanford's Dana Kirk in the 200 fly and they'll likely have a rematch at the Pac-10s a month from now at the Kings County Natatorium in Federal Way, WA — unless of course Mason opts for the mile on the final day.) <\/p>\n
Arizona won the first three events (400 medley relay, 1000-200 frees) before Cal's Michelle Harper led a one-two Golden Bear sweep of the 50 free. <\/p>\n
Then Mason came right back to win the 200 IM and the handwriting was on the wall. <\/p>\n
Also on Saturday, the suddenly dominant Hayes raced to victories in the 100-200 frees with finishes of 51.54-1:50.19. Hayes swept the aforementioned events in both of this weekend's meets. <\/p>\n
Perhaps the key to Arizona's victory was the stellar performance of its divers. Junior Claire Febvay won both the 1- and 3-meter springboard events with scores of 176.30 and 197.55, respectively. Junior transfer Daniela Bemme placed second in both too. In fact, the Wildcats went 1-2-3 in the 3-meter with senior Jenn Hess finishing third (176.45) <\/p>\n
Cal was led by the redoubtable Natalie Coughlin, who scored at with wins in the 200 fly (1:59.07) and 200 back (1:57.86) — events where she's the national leader and the American\/NCAA record-holder too. Runner-up in both was the 'Cats Atlanta 100 back Olympic gold medalist, Beth Botsford, and third in the backstroke was Cal's Helen Silver (pr 1:58.86). <\/p>\n
Olympian Staci Stitts also scored a win for Cal with a victory in the 200 breast.<\/p>\n
After defeating two Top 10-ranked teams this weekend, the future offers no respite for the Wildcats. They return to the road next weekend (Jan. 31-Feb. 1) when they battle Texas and SMU, both nationally ranked squads. <\/p>\n
— Bill Bell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TUCSON, AZ., January 25. THESE 'Cats aren't mild, they're wild. Coach Frank Busch's Arizona Wildcat women's swimmers made it a sweep of their California-based Pac-10 foes here this afternoon at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n